This week we’ll look at some of the top events, awards and sales for music in the decades leading to 2016.
Events of 1966
- January 8 – Shindig! is broadcast for the last time on ABC, with musical guests the Kinks and the Who.
- January 14 – Young singer David Jones changes his last name to Bowie to avoid being confused with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
- January 17 – Simon & Garfunkel release the album Sounds of Silence.
- February 6 – The Animals appear a fifth time on The Ed Sullivan Show to perform their iconic Vietnam-anthem hit “We Gotta Get Out of this Place“.
- March 4 – The Beatles‘ John Lennon is quoted in the London newspaper, The Evening Standard as saying that the band was now more popular than Jesus. In August, following publication of this remark in Datebook, there are Beatles protests and record burnings in the Southern US’s Bible Belt.
- April – Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass set a world record by placing five albums simultaneously on Billboard’s Pop Album Chart, with four of them the Top 10. Their music outsells The Beatles by a margin of two-to-one – over 13 million recordings. They win 4 Grammys this year.
- April 12 – In Los Angeles, California, Jan Berry, of Jan and Dean, crashes his Corvette into a truck that is parked on Whittier Boulevard. Berry suffers total physical paralysis for over a year as well as extensive brain damage.
- April 23 – For the first time since its January 18, 1964, issue, the Billboard Hot 100 chart fails to have an artist from the UK with a Top 10 single, ending a streak of 117 consecutive weeks.
- May 6 – The first issue of Džuboks, the first Yugoslav magazine dedicated to rock music and the first rock magazine in a socialist country, is released.
- May 13 – The Rolling Stones release “Paint It, Black“, which becomes the first number one hit single in the US and UK to feature a sitar (played by Brian Jones).
- May 17 – Bob Dylan and the Hawks (later The Band) perform at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England. Dylan is booed by the audience because of his decision to tour with an electric band, the boos culminating in the famous “Judas” shout.
- June 6 – At Gallatin, Tennessee, 25-year-old Claudette Frady-Orbison, while motorcycycle riding with her husband Roy Orbison, is killed when her motorcycle was struck by a pickup truck.
- July 2 – The Beatles become the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo. The performance ignites protests from local citizens who felt that it was inappropriate for a rock and roll band to play at Budokan.
- July 29 – Bob Dylan is involved in a motorcycle accident.
- August 5 – The Beatles release their groundbreaking album Revolver
- August 11 – John Lennon holds a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, to apologize for his remarks the previous March. “I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I’m sorry I opened my mouth. I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better.”
- September 12 – The first episode of The Monkees is broadcast on NBC Television.
- September 16
- The Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center) opens in New York City with the première of Samuel Barber‘s opera Antony and Cleopatra. The opera is rejected by the critics.
- Eric Burdon records a solo album after leaving The Animals and appears on the show “Ready, Steady, Go“, singing “Help Me Girl“, a UK #14 solo hit. Also on the show are Otis Redding and Chris Farlowe.
- October 8 – WOR-FM in New York City becomes the first FM rock music station, under the leadership of DJ Murray The K.
- November 9 – John Lennon meets Yoko Ono when he attends a preview of her art exhibition at the Indica Gallery in London.
- December 16 – The Jimi Hendrix Experience releases their first single in the UK, “Hey Joe“.
Grammy Awards 1966
Fun fact: Did you know there used to be grammys for Album Cover Art and Album Cover Photography??
Album of the Year – Frank Sinatra, September Of My Years
Best Comedy Performance – Bill Cosby, Why Is There Air?
Female Vocal Performance – Barbra Streisand, My Name is Barbra
Male Vocal Performance – Frank Sinatra, It Was A Very Good Year
Best R&B Recording – James Brown, Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag
Best Folk Recording – Harry Belafonte & Miriam Makeba, An Evening With Belafonte & Makeba
Top Selling Albums of 1966
1.The Beatles – Revolver
2.The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
Had no idea EWF remade this!
3.Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde
4.Simon & Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage Rosemary & Thyme
5.The Rolling Stones – Aftermath
Although it came out earlier, still the big dance moves of the year was The Jerk, and also The Hanky Panky!